Rob Ida’s grandfather, Joe Ida, briefly owned a Tucker dealership in Yonkers, New York, and while the shop closed after just three days in business – a victim of the scandal that enveloped Preston Tucker – the vision of Preston Tucker and his remarkable automobiles stayed with the Ida family. In 2001, Rob and his father, Bob, constructed their first hand-built replica Tucker 48, with the blessing of the Tucker family, and now the pair is moving on to something even more ambitious: creating the Tucker 48′s predecessor, the George Lawson-designed but never-built Tucker Torpedo.

It was Christmas of 1946 when George Lawson presented Preston Tucker with a quarter-scale model of the Tucker Torpedo. Hedging his bets, Lawson styled the model with an asymmetrical design, in order to give Tucker the freedom to choose the preferred design. The passenger side of the model was rather conventional, using a fixed front fender and a fixed headlamp. The driver side, however, used a movable fender that steered with the front wheels, allowing the outboard headlamps to track the vehicle’s path of motion. The central “cyclops” headlamp would light the path directly ahead.

Rob Ida with Sean Tucker, Preston Tucker’s great-grandson.

The Torpedo originally featured sweeping coupe styling, with the driver located along the centerline of the car for optimized handling and improved visibility. Like the Tucker 48, the Tucker Torpedo specified disc brakes and an independent suspension in all four corners and relied upon a rear-mounted, air-cooled flat-six engine. Preston Tucker, however, deemed a slightly more conventional shape as more marketable, so the Torpedo coupe concept was shelved.

History tells us that the Tucker Corporation was shuttered before it could begin full production of the Tucker 48, the victim of a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation that ultimately cleared Preston Tucker of all charges. Still, the damage was done, and Tucker died before his vision of building a truly progressive automobile could be realized. It never left the Tucker family, just as it never left the Ida family, and the two began communicating as the Idas began work on the original Tucker 48 recreation. Initially, the plan was for Ida Concepts to build 50 Tucker 48s, each constructed by hand and powered by a rear-mounted Cadillac Northstar V-8. After finishing the first, Rob Ida realized that opening up sales would rob the business of creative control, as each customer would want something increasingly outlandish. With nightmare visions of a flamed-metallic-chartreuse Tucker 48 riding on 24-inch spinners dancing in Ida’s head, he said he realized the path forward was to build the Tucker 48s he wanted to build; if customers wanted to purchase them, fine. If they didn’t, that was fine, too, because Ida Concepts had plenty of other business to fall back on.

Rob Ida’s Tucker Torpedo, contrasted with a period Science Illustrated article on the car.

That was back in 2001, and since then Ida Concepts has built (and sold) four Tucker 48 models. Number five is under construction, and this one will feature a twin-turbo setup on its Cadillac Northstar engine. Because the Northstar platform is getting hard to find these days, Ida said that future Tucker 48 models will rely on the readily available Chevrolet LS-series V-8 for propulsion. With the Tucker 48 challenge met, Ida’s thoughts turned towards recreating the Tucker that never was: the original Torpedo concept, as envisioned by George Lawson. “This Torpedo concept was what really triggered [my grandfather] to put it all on the line,” Ida said. “This was the car that he really wanted.”

Recreating a car that existed in limited numbers is challenging enough, but building a car that existed only as a quarter-scale model creates its own problems. The Petersen Automotive Museum gave Ida access to the original Lawson Torpedo model, and Sean Tucker, Preston Tucker’s great-grandson (and an automotive engineer himself), lent his expertise to the project. Tucker also granted access to the family’s extensive archives, providing rare and original artwork to show what the Torpedo may have looked like. After scanning the original model and creating a full three-dimensional pattern, the Idas then cut out full-size sections of the pattern and assembled them into a wooden buck, which will be used to create the Torpedo’s hand-sculpted aluminum bodywork.

Ida and his team (which includes his father, Bob, and Sean Tucker on a part-time basis) are already a few years into the project, which will take another two years or so to complete. The shop will handle every step of building the car, from creating its steel frame to finishing its paint and upholstery, with the exception of creating the drivetrain. As per Preston Tucker’s original vision, the Torpedo will be rear-engined, powered by an air-cooled flat-six engine. Ida figures that a normally aspirated 3.0-liter Porsche flat-six will give him in the neighborhood of 300 horsepower, which is quite a bit more than Tucker could have envisioned back in 1946.

The Ida Tucker Torpedo already has a home, too. A current Ida Tucker 48 owner saw the designs in the shop and committed to purchasing the car on the spot, regardless of cost. Ida said the full-size Torpedo will include not only the center-position steering from Lawson’s design, but also the fenders and headlamps that turn with the wheels.

The wooden buck built from George Lawson’s original clay model.

“I love the fact that we’re able to kinda reach back there and pull something special out of history and bring it back to life,” Ida said. For more information about the Rob Ida Tuckers, visit RobIdaConcepts.com.

UPDATE (16.May.2014): Below are two new images of the Tucker Torpedo project, courtesy of Rob Ida. The first shows a completed (and steerable) front fender pod, while the second is a Solidworks rendering of the car’s steering wheel, as created by Sean Tucker, Preston Tucker’s grandson.